ISLAMABAD, June 22: Establishment Division, in an unprecedented move, posted newly-inducted 16 District Management Group (DMG) officers without training, official sources said on Thursday.

The officers have been posted in the NWFP and Azad Kashmir. The batch of 16 untrained officers, probably the first ones in the country to get posting without training, have been equally shared between Azad Kashmir and the NWFP.

The postings have been made on the request of Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (Erra). The posted officers have been placed under the administrative control of Erra.

Erra’s mandate is to plan, coordinate, monitor and regulate reconstruction and rehabilitation activities in earthquake- affected areas.

When a senior official was asked to comment on the development, he wondered how the officers could be given postings without training. He said it was unbelievable. “How could this phenomenon be explained,” another questioned.

It is widely believed that the move would not only affect the training of the DMG officers, normally considered as the brightest and best lot of officers inducted by the government, but has also put their careers at stake.

The posting of 16 officers out of the under-training batch of 22 odd officers is also likely to worsen the shortage of officers being experienced by the government. “We already have very few officers and if they start taking out officers without training then that deficiency may further increase,” an Establishment Division source said.